Winemaker Notes
Chappellet's Pritchard Hill Cabernet Sauvignon has been, since the beginning of their winemaking career, the most sought after wine of their portfolio. The wine is truly a love letter to the winegrowing potential of Pritchard Hill. The wine was inspired by Bordeaux, and like most left bank Bordeaux, the wine is a blend of predominately Cabernet Sauvignon with remaining amounts other classic Bordeaux blend varieties. The vines grow upon rocky, mountainside vineyards. After harvest and fermentation, the wine was aged for 22 months in 100% new French oak barrels.
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
The Chappellet Pritchard Hill Cabernet Sauvignon has always been an impressive wine; the 2021 vintage is out-of-this-world! An elite wine among the world's finest, this wine excels with aromas and flavors of bold black fruits, enticing savory spices, and dramatic graphite notes. Give this wine at least half a dozen years in the cellar before letting the genie out of the bottle. Savor it with a grilled bone-in prime ribeye. (Tasted: December 13, 2024, San Francisco, CA)
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Decanter
Such an attractive and alluring bouquet of violet florals, blue fruit aromatics, sagebrush, bay laurel, and toasty cedarwood. Medium to full-bodied with a wonderfully rich fruit-forward palate of succulent blackberry, plums, and black cherry, nuanced by an inviting minerality with an ironstone quality laced by dried sage. The tannins are palate-etching and crisp and resolve with a fineness that leaves an overall impression of total harmony. Best from 2025; ideally, you'd hold off until near 2030 and enjoy until 2050.
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Tasting Panel
Farmed for 57 years and replanted block by block for the past three decades, Pritchard Hill remains a benchmark for Napa Valley's superior mountain fruit. Winemaker Phillip Corallo-Titus aged this wine for 22 months in 100% new French oak, and upon first sip, it shows its youth with a powerful thrust of muscle. A rush of mulberry, boysenberry, mocha, and cedar bursts through as dry, sinewy tannins surround the mouth. As the palate opens, new leather and balsamic make way for oregano and licorice, imparting opulence on the finish
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Jeb Dunnuck
The flagship 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Pritchard Hill is based on 95% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Petit Verdot. Dense purple-hued, with incredible aromatics of black and blue fruits, camphor, liquid violets, tobacco, and graphite, it has a remarkable sense of opulence in its aromas and flavors and delivers full-bodied richness, a massive mid-palate, building tannins, and a thrilling finish. It reminds me of an improved 2013. This heavenly Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon will evolve for 30-40 years in cold cellars and is another absolutely sensational wine from this estate. Don't miss it.
Rating: 98+ -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A blend of 95% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Petit Verdot, all aged in new French oak, the 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Pritchard Hill appears destined to be another classic. Penetrating aromas of cassis and red berries are joined by hints of violets, dried sage, crushed stones and pencil shavings on the nose, while the full-bodied palate is rich and intensely concentrated, framed by dusty tannins that linger easily on the long, mouthwatering finish.
Rating: 98+ -
James Suckling
Notes of crushed dark berries, chocolate black licorice, iodine, bark and graphite. Wide and encompassing on the palate with a full body and ultra-fine, almost weightless tannins. There is a fine, chalky minerality to it with sea shell, iron and cigar box undertones. Beautiful fruit. Firm and polished. Needs time. Try after 2026.
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Wine Spectator
This fully embraces the hyperripe, polished style, offering a broad, creamy wave of cassis, melted licorice and blackberry preserves gilded liberally with violet and roasted vanilla accents through the finish. Should cruise in the cellar. Best from 2026 through 2040. 3,730 cases made.
The Chappellets' romance with Pritchard Hill began when Donn and Molly Chappellet first glimpsed the mountain's spectacular vistas in the late 1960s. Inspired by the notion that Bacchus loves the hills, Donn and Molly followed the advice of legendary winemaker André Tchelistcheff and settled on the rocky eastern slopes of the Napa Valley. There, on the mountain’s serene and picturesque hillsides, the Chappellets established their home and winery, raising their children and cultivating the vineyards.
Since being founded by Donn and Molly in 1967, Chappellet has earned acclaim championing the robust power and complexity of wines crafted from mountain grapes. At the same time, Chappellet has helped to establish Pritchard Hill as one of California’s most revered winegrowing sites. To honor the mountain's rich, expressive character, the winemaking team focuses on creating extraordinary, age-worthy Cabernet Sauvignons that embody the intensity and finesse of fruit from Pritchard Hill.
One of the most prestigious wines of the world capable of great power and grace, Napa Valley Cabernet is a leading force in the world of fine, famous, collectible red wine. Today the Napa Valley and Cabernet Sauvignon are so intrinsically linked that it is difficult to discuss one without the other. But it wasn’t until the 1970s that this marriage came to light; sudden international recognition rained upon Napa with the victory of the Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon in the 1976 Judgement of Paris.
Cabernet Sauvignon undoubtedly dominates Napa Valley today, covering half of the land under vine, commanding the highest prices per ton and earning the most critical acclaim. Cabernet Sauvignon’s structure, acidity, capacity to thrive in multiple environs and ability to express nuances of vintage make it perfect for Napa Valley where incredible soil and geographical diversity are found and the climate is perfect for grape growing. Within the Napa Valley lie many smaller sub-AVAs that express specific characteristics based on situation, slope and soil—as a perfect example, Rutherford’s famous dust or Stags Leap District's tart cherry flavors.
